Hi all,
New to the forum although I have been lurking for a while now. My wife and I have been considering a move from the suburbs to the river market or (less likely) downtown in a loft or condo environment. Our only kid is in college and we're looking for a change away from the burbs possibly.

One of the places we like is the Conover Place lofts in the River Market area. I'm curious if anyone here has experience with the place good or bad and any other things we should be considering. We've mostly focused in the River Market area, but have looked a bit downtown at financial district and a few other locations also. Strangely enough we both work in the northland, just across the river and not downtown.

KCtonic wrote:One of the places we like is the Conover Place lofts in the River Market area. I'm curious if anyone here has experience with the place good or bad and any other things we should be considering. We've mostly focused in the River Market area, but have looked a bit downtown at financial district and a few other locations also. Strangely enough we both work in the northland, just across the river and not downtown.

My wife & I lived there for a year. Was our first foray into condo living - we were fortunate to find a unit whose owner was transferred within a year of build-out. It was custom designed in a style which was perfectly aligned with our style (sleek, bamboo and an indoor koi pond). Our goal was to figure out if condo living was achievable for a couple who had been married for 20 years and whose kids were grown. We had always lived in midtown/Brookside/Hyde Park, but in single family residences. Started condo shopping and saw a unit for lease, so we put our house on the market and moved in for a year to try it out.

We discovered we loved the loft concept and ended up selling Hyde Park home and bought a condo (not at CP though - we bought elsewhere and gutted it). However, Conover Place is one of my favorite buildings in town - great style, indoor heated parking, can take the grocery cart from your car trunk to the kitchen, etc.

Great airport views - if you're a political junky, good watching during a Presidential election cause all the candidates fly into MKC and the motorcades travel Broadway. Hint: Secret Service always notices guys on rooftop decks wielding a 300mm f2.8 Nikkor lens on a monopod shooting the motorcade <g>. If you travel, airport trip to MCI is a dream - I used to do it in 17 minutes flat. Egress/ingress to I-70 is also great.

Downsides: Floors are thin - significant noise transmission - but then again, that's why penthouses cost more. OTOH, if you live on the top floor, the A/C compressor farm creates a low level continuous hum during the summer. It was not noticeable per se, but I didn't like getting used to it.

Thanks for the info! I do have a few more questions and will send a PM with those shortly.

I'm a little concerned by the noise factor as the unit I'm looking at is not on the top floor. I understand this is one of those things I may have to just deal with - just have to get my head around it.

KCtonic wrote:Thanks for the info! I do have a few more questions and will send a PM with those shortly.

I'm a little concerned by the noise factor as the unit I'm looking at is not on the top floor. I understand this is one of those things I may have to just deal with - just have to get my head around it.

The noise transfer in Conover tends to come from impact, though high heels can be impact enough, at 2 or 3 in the morning, as can the bass from a stereo or tv played loudly. I'm not aware of issues of ambient noise (voices/normal tv or music).

Appears kclofter can give you the detailed experience. I know several people there (or previously there) who have had zero problem, and a couple have been really put off by their perception of noise level.

Thanks again for the input guys,
Thought I'd finally come back here for a short, but very belated update:

We looked at Conover and really thought about it, but the fees sort of scared us off a bit. HOA seemed a bit steep with no club room, no gym, and now no pool (they weren't contributing to KCLoft's maintenance of the Richards Conover pool and were kicked out permanently). I do like the enclosed garage quite a bit, but it's just hard to take fees like that when comparing to the competition even in the River Market.

In the end we decided to rent for a year and watch the market (condo/loft market) to see how things go. We also wanted to ease into the transition from a larger suburban northland home to a loft apartment with less storage. We're now enjoying the Old Townley - so far liking it a lot.

Update: HOA's are higher than we were used to, but that's coming from someone who had owned a house for a long time.

Last edited by KCtonic on Thu May 23, 2013 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And another update.... We ended up buying in Conover after all. It fit our needs in terms of location (River Market), covered parking (enclosed, heated with storage), and outdoor space. After living in Townley for nearly a year this location turned out to be the best for us.

Moved in about a month ago and are doing some work to it, but love it so far.